Darksiders

- Play the game on Easy. The combat will still be fun, and the puzzles will be the same, but you won't have to suffer through some of the bullshit fights against stupid enemies later in the game (There are only one or two bullshit fights, but once you get to them you'll be glad you started on Easy). You can't change the difficulty mid game.

- The completed (all ten pieces) Abyssum Armour carries through to subsequent play throughs (and makes you pretty damn impervious).

- If you want to be able to start a new game with the Abyssal armor on the Steam version, you have to complete the ultimate blade BEFORE completing the armor set or else the Steam version of the game will refuse to recognize that you have done so. Once you've done those two in that order, you can beat the game and then subsequent new games on any difficulty will offer you the option to use the armor from the start. War will still appear in his normal get-up in cutscenes though.

- It also fucks with other achievements (like the car meets helicopter one, which didn't work until I got the armor working), so even if you don't intend to start a new game with the armor, you'll probably want to do this to make sure future achievements work.

- From the pause menu, go to options/enter code and enter "The Hollow Lord" for a free scythe (available from Vulgrim the shopkeeper). Otherwise I think it's 1000 souls(?).

- Don't try to get the "Dark Rider" trophy/achievement (ride for 100 miles) while actually holding the controller. If you really want it, just rubberband the stick and do something else for a while. It can take a couple of hours even after all the riding you've done by the end of the game.

- The "Fury's Embrace" legendary enhancement will show the location of all chests in the game. Including one in Drowned Pass that you can't actually get unless you pick it up when the gatekeeper puts you in the Shadow World. Don't waste your time.

- I'm not too far in Darksiders, but it seems like every open area has a hidden chest that can only be found by smashing all of a certain item. In the first place you meet Vulgrim, you can get a hidden chest by smashing all the fire hydrants.

- Get the Spear Tackle (I think that's what it's called, it's the move that lets you attack in a dash) as soon as possible, because it utterly trivializes the combat.

- Speaking of dashing, get it down as soon as possible. To effectively fight, you will need to be able to quickly move between several targets and get the hell out of the way of attacks. Just make sure you're not dashing into enemies, because that counts as an attack and will usually make you harmlessly bounce off of them while they pound you into the ground while you're recoiling.

- Unlike God of War or Devil May Cry, your subweapons are to be used with your main weapon, not replace it. Busting out the scythe in the middle of a combo and finishing it with a heavy attack from the sword is completely possible and encouraged.

- You are completely invincible while performing your finishers on enemies. You can immediately go into a finisher at any time, including in the middle of your combo or right out of a dash. Learn to abuse this, because the game loves to throw a lot of enemies at you at once, especially as the game goes on.

- The game is almost all combat for the first hour or two. If you're thinking that it's just a bad Devil May Cry/God of War ripoff, at least stick around until you reach the Twilight Cathedral.

- There's an achievement for fully upgrading all your weapons. Your sword is not included in this, which makes things much, much easier. Don't kill everything with the sword if you're going for this achievement, because your sword will get replaced and your new one will come at max level, wasting all those souls.

- Get Fury's Embrace as soon as you can and equip it. It will reveal all the chests in the game, which makes hunting the Abyssal Armor and other Fragments much, much easier.

- Magic is pretty useless outside of Stone Skin and Blade Geyser. The former will increase your offense and defense, with the latter being a very nice AoE spell.

- The fist and scythe aren't as useless as you might think. The scythe in particular is good for large groups of small enemies, and the fist can juggle things like crazy when you use the right abilities.

- Don't fret over upgrading the sword's level by killing enemies with it. You'll get a fully upgraded sword later in the game. You should still buy moves for the sword, though.

- This might have been obvious to some but it took me ages to realise: There is a sub-boss towards the end of the game that is spider-like, and you have to throw webbed bundles at its mouth to cause it to eat. It sounds as if these bundles are causing the boss pain when they hit, but they're not at all. You have to break the ice which forms the top shell of the boss to do damage.